The present invention relates to a microminiature personal computer, i.e., a small form factor general-purpose computer using external devices for information input and output.
In computing, a form factor specifies the physical dimensions of major system components. There were numerous efforts to create small form-factor devices which would be really small and portable and provide functionality of general-purpose computer. It is possible to classify these efforts into several categories.
The largest category is small computers with built-in devices for user information input and output, sometimes referred to as mobile computing. There are many groups of such devices and they are marketed under different names, including pocket personal computer (PC), personal digital assistant (PDA), tablet PC, handheld PC, micro PC, smart phone, ultra-mobile PC.
Including user interface doesn't allow to decrease the size of these devices beyond certain limits due to requirements imposed by human—computer interaction (to be usable, screen and keyboard can't be too small). Small input/output devices often require special software and limit functionality.
Another category are portable computers without user interface, but requiring special hosting devices to be attached to. While there are many inventions claimed (20060253894, U.S. Pat. No. 6,538,880, 20020097555, U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,533,408, 5,264,992, 5,708,840, 6,029,183, 20090200367), devices embodied such inventions are expected to use special hosting devices.
The third group, sometimes referred to as software mobility or portable platforms, is a technology of storing software and data in a mobile storage medium. When the device is attached to a host computer, these programs may be loaded into the host computer and executed there.
All processing is done by the host computer in this case, so it limits what programs can be run. Security risk is higher because the host computer and the storage device are not isolated and computer protection may be discredited by malicious software located on removable media.
The fourth group is portable computers without user interface created to expand the function of the external devices (such as U.S. Pat. No. 8,699,218 B2). Designed to expand functions of the external devices they allow different ways of interaction between the external device and the portable computer thus introducing security risks.
It would be desirable to implement in a small form factor (for example, such as a USB flash drive) a microminiature personal computer without a screen, keyboard, touch screen and other user input-output devices, but able do all processing so programs run inside the microminiature personal computer and able to connect to an external computing or display devices for information input and output. The external device, to which the microminiature personal computer is connected, is used only for information input and output through an encrypted network connection between them. Thus security of both systems is assured due to the lack of unauthorized interaction between the microminiature personal computer and the external device.